


Selective Listening

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s11e21 All In The Family, Headspace, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Give him a different vessel,</i> Dean prays. <i>Any vessel. Please.</i></p>
<p>Chuck doesn’t answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selective Listening

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to [cecilia](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/) for being kind with her edits even when i type fic up on my phone

Now that he’s back, Chuck picks and chooses which prayers to answer.

Dean is wandering around the kitchen, trying to pull a meal together from what they have laying around. He opens the fridge and stands there for a moment, staring at its contents, thinking, _Shit, we’re out of eggs._ He sighs as he closes the door.

“Check again,” he hears from somewhere behind him.

Dean turns to find Chuck sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper, looking like he thinks he belongs there. He turns back around and opens the fridge. He pulls out the eggs and pretends Chuck isn’t there while he makes breakfast.

Later, while he’s sitting with Sam as they’re both searching for any sign of Amara, he thinks, _God, could this website possibly load any slower?_ As soon as the thought is done, he hears the snap of fingers, and the page pops into existence.

He looks up. Chuck is sitting at the end of the previously vacant table, shiteating grin on his face like he expects Dean to jump for joy or sing his praises or something. Even though Chuck still hasn’t managed to find any pants and he’s still wearing Dean’s robe and there’s at least three kinds of food gathering in the folds of the fabric.

Dean gets dozens of minor miracles, but none that really matter in the way he wants them to.

\--

Chuck does save Sam from Amara; Dean will give him that.

Like hell is Dean going to say thank you for something Chuck should have done unprompted anyway, though. He knows all about giving fathers too much credit.

Even if this particular father is _the_ father.

Chuck saves Sam, but Lucifer is part of that particular package deal, and now he’s in their home, he’s there wearing Cas’ face.

Dean looks at him, at first. He sees the way he’s looking at Chuck. Dean knows that look. It’s the one Dean himself used to wear back before he could hunt, when he and Sam had been left alone longer than expected and he wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling when he finally heard the key turn in the lock.

And Sam -- Lucifer looks at Sam like he’s _hungry._ Like he’s waiting for the right moment to strike. It makes Dean’s stomach turn.

Dean processes those expressions, and then he looks away and doesn’t look back.

He finds other things to look at, instead. He stares at Chuck or at Sam or at some undefined point on the wall. After all, his voice is so different, the way Lucifer uses it. If he can’t see that mouth moving, he can almost pretend it isn’t Cas at all.

_Give him a different vessel,_ Dean prays. _Any vessel. Please._

Chuck doesn’t answer.

\--

Chuck and Lucifer get their own rooms in the bunker. They get their own beds and access to the showers and free reign of Dean’s home, into which so few have been invited. They’re not family, but here they are, settling in like they may as well be.

Dean hates it with every fiber of his being, and the only reason he doesn’t push harder against it is because he’s afraid.

He knows Sam sees it, too. Sam probably sees it better than Dean does, actually. Knows better what it means, that something as great and terrible as Lucifer is afraid of Chuck.

“You okay?” Sam asks, when Chuck and Lucifer are at last both out of the room.

“No,” Dean says, because what could possibly worse than this current situation? Lucifer, the angel Sam hates more than anything, in the bunker, inside their home, willingly invited, and wearing the face of the angel who Dean--

He takes a deep breath. He asks, “are you?”

“No,” Sam says.

Dean looks at Sam, at the circles forming under his eyes, the tense set of his shoulders. Thinks about how he’s stopped with the babbling, the non-stop questioning, the curiosity, regardless of whether or not Chuck is in the room.

He thinks about Chuck, the actual literal _God_ , who abandoned them because he was disappointed.

Dean thinks, _Buddy, you don’t know the first thing about disappointment._

\--

Dean and Sam have an unspoken understanding. They sleep in shifts, like they used to sometimes when they were kids.

They take turns dozing off at the table, making it look as much like an accident as possible so none of their unwelcome houseguests have a reason to go digging deeper. Dean’s entire body hates him for it, wakes him up not because he’s well rested but because of the crick in his neck and the pins and needles in his arms. He groans each time he shifts back to consciousness, wincing as he stretches.

He yearns for a real bed, for real sleep, for real rest, but he is careful not to pray for any of these things.

Sam doesn’t fare any better. He wakes with a start, jerking back into conscious with his eyes gummy and his hair everywhere. “Sorry, must've dropped off,” he lies, instead of saying _Thank you._

“Get your ass back to work,” Dean says, instead of _You’re welcome._

\--

Dean drags Sam to get groceries with him, just for the sake of getting them both out and away. He finds a local farmer’s market, where they spend the morning picking out fruits and vegetables and spices from local vendors. They go to La Dow’s after to pick up everything else they might need for the next week or so. Dean wants to make sure the food they're eating is stuff he picked and purchased himself, not something that just appeared in their kitchen as a result of selective wish granting.

He makes Sam his favorite foods, makes a bunch of healthy crap with all organic ingredients. Cooks it up without complaint and doesn’t even call it “crap” out loud.

“Dean,” Sam says. “You don’t have to do this.”

Dean thinks of all the things he currently can't fix. He prays, _Just give him back and I swear I’ll never ask for anything else ever again._ Just like the millions of children who he’s sure have made similar promises, he is met only with silence.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I do.”

\--

He thinks about Cas almost constantly. He’s pretty sure that, whether he means to or not, he’s constantly broadcasting some kind of prayer.

Chuck doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t give him sympathetic looks, doesn’t let him down easy with a _Sorry, kiddo, no can do,_ doesn’t even bother telling him flat out _No._

It’s the indifference that really gets to Dean, that has always gotten to him, calling and calling and receiving no response from someone you _know_ is out there, someone for whom listening would be as easy as picking up a phone.

Dean hates Chuck for not answering, but not as much as he hates himself for continuing to call even though he knows he’s never going to get the answer he’s hoping for.

It blows up in his face eventually, of course. It always does. He does his best to keep his prayers to himself, but he has a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. It’s always been terrifying how easily Chuck can see through him.

“You want him back?” Chuck spits, and for a moment, he is every inch the old testament God. “Then fix this.”

Dean recognizes these warring feelings, this mixture of awe and fear, of respect and disgust. He is intimately familiar with them.

_Don’t confuse me with your dad,_ Chuck had said, but Dean thinks he sees a bit of John in him after all.

“What’re we gonna do?” Dean asks, later, once they’re alone. He keeps his voice low, as though that will make a difference. As though it’s ever made a difference.

Sam has always been better at the whole faith thing. He says, “We’re gonna answer our own damn prayers.”


End file.
